Thursday, June 30, 2011

Almost sunset in the valley

This morning I had a deer on my front steps. I think she was eating my coleus plant or maybe the geraniums. I’m not sure about that. I should have known something was going on when Baby Dog started whining just before my morning alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. Baby Dog pretty much whines at everything, so I’ve learned to ignore her much of the time.

I stick my head out the door every morning to check on the weather pretty much as soon as my feet hit the floor. But even with Baby Dog whining in the background, I didn’t expect a couple of deer to bounce away from the front of the cabin, nearly colliding with my parked car in their fright. Everyone got a surprise this morning.

I’m sure the older doe has a fawn or fawns very nearby. I see her on most days. Last evening she was standing half in the pond. Her back feet were in the pond, her front feet were up on the bank. She looked like she was posing for a taxidermist’s mount. I slowed the car and tried to grab for the camera but a second of standing still was all she could take. Then she bounded off uphill in the direction of the cabin, eventually heading into the woods on the opposite side of my lane. I know she has a fawn in there. I can be standing on the lane, peering into the woods and barely see 10 feet. An entire herd of deer could be in there, and I’d never be able to see them. The undergrowth is that thick.

I am on the lookout for her fawn. As often as I see the old doe, it shouldn’t be too long before the fawn is tagging along behind her.

2 comments:

I had friends living within the city limits of Philadelphia who had an evergreen Christmas wreath hanging on their front door eaten completely away by deer! At least yours just come up to the front steps.

Naturalists here say the coyotes are getting one of every two fawns. I believe it--we heard it ourselves one night a couple weeks back. It's a haunting sound, one I will not forget. The deer population is way down in this area. Are you being affected the same way?

About Me

I live in a cabin in the forests of Pennsylvania. I write about what I see and do in the natural world around me. I've been a hawkwatcher for more than 20 years, a birder for longer than that, and a crayfish-catcher since I was a polywog.